Fully 36 years after their horrific crime, a Chilean Court sentenced 10 retired members of the Army for dousing in petrol and setting alight 19-year-old photographer Rodrigo Rojas and 18-year-old student Carmen Gloria Quintana, and leaving them to die. The “Caso Quemados” (case of the burnt ones) occurred on July 2, 1986 in the working class commune of Estación Central in Santiago amidst ongoing demonstrations against depression-level unemployment, mass poverty and bloody repression brutality meted out by the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
The case was reopened in 2013 by roving judge Mario Carroza, assigned to investigate human rights cases. Fresh evidence was brought to light in 2015 when a former conscript after 29 years broke a military pact of silence, allowing Judge Carroza to sentence the patrol in 2019.
Last March 21, the fourth chamber of the Court of Appeals increased the sentences against retired officers Julio Castañer, Iván
— source wsws.org | 3 Apr 2022